Update; Leads Have Run Out In Youth Bias Attacks

Published: May 10, 1992

Investigators have reached a dead end in their search for the white teen-agers who are said to have attacked three black and Hispanic youngsters in the Bronx and smeared their faces with a white substance earlier this year, the police say.

Despite an extensive police canvass of the area, hundreds of interviews and a $20,000 reward, the police have not found any witnesses to the bias attacks, and the hot line for anonymous tips has long grown cold.

"We've run out of leads," said Inspector Donald E. Moss, the executive officer of the Bronx Detective Borough. Nonetheless, the police are not classifying the incidents as hoaxes and continue to keep the cases open.

The first victims were a black brother and sister who said that on Jan. 6 a gang of white youths smeared white shoe polish on their faces and robbed them on their way to school. A week later, Bryan Figueroa, 12 years old, said that three white youths knocked him to the ground, beat him and smeared white makeup on his face.

Nellie Wilson, the mother of the two black children in the first incident, said she did not doubt the police's efforts, but she was frustrated by their lack of progress.